


All the Night

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Black Widow Natasaha, Clint/Natasha - Freeform, Clintasha - Freeform, F/M, Veterinary Clinic, veterinarian Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22567339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: This night is just full of surprises.Too bad Natasha hates surprises.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 68
Kudos: 156
Collections: Charity Hawktion 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalika999 (kalika_999)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalika_999/gifts).



> For Kali! This took forever, and I appreciate your patience. Health and life and, well, things.
> 
> As always, a huge thanks to Ro for always being so fucking amazing, and for beta reading this.

Natasha needed to find a better quality of villain.

The kind who she  _ didn’t _ have to chase through dark, wet alleys on dark, wet nights.

She was fairly certain she hadn’t directly pissed off any of the SHIELD brass in the last few months. After this, she was going to request an op overseas. Somewhere sunny, somewhere that required her to wear bathing suits and silk and drink vodka and eat carbs.

Of course, that all assumed she made it through  _ this _ op.

Apparently, it wasn’t enough for Natasha to be the go-to agent when SHIELD wanted to take apart international Russian weapons smuggling rings.  _ Apparently, _ she was now the go-to agent for domestic Russian smuggling operations.

Wonderful.

Fantastic.

Now if only the Russian track suit mafia would stop  _ running from her _ . 

After entirely too long - and entirely too many ripped bags of trash and filthy puddles - Natasha cornered the low-level enforcer that was her current prey.

“Now,” she straightened up to her full, if still rather diminutive, height and brushed her sweaty, dirty hair back from her forehead, “Sasha, are you going to be a good boy and tell me what I want to know, or are you going to be a fun boy and let me beat it out of you?”

Sasha, disappointment that he was, went for neither option.

Instead, the velour-draped asshat picked up a soggy cardboard box and threw it at Natasha with a sob of terror.

It was comforting that he was afraid of her, at least. What  _ wasn’t _ comforting was the heavy, wet box that knocked her back a step.

Even less comforting was the shrill cry from the box and the sudden, sharp  _ daggers _ digging into Natasha’s dark, wet hoodie.

Both Sasha and Natasha stared at her chest in horror as something scrambled free from the box. Something dark and wet and-

_ “Meow _ .”

A cat.

There was now a cat scaling Natasha’s ribcage, and Sasha was doing some grotesque laugh-sob thing, and Natasha was so very, very done.

She pulled out her gun.

The laugh-sob became a sob-sob.

“I don’t know anything!” Sasha wailed. “I just go where they tell me! I punch who they tell me to punch!”

“And who, Sasha, are  _ they _ ?” One hand leveling the gun at Sasha, Natasha used her other hand to try to pry the cat free. The cat dug its little death claws into Natasha and refused to be budged.

“‘They’?” Sasha had tears and snot dripping down his face, and in the weak, orange streetlight, he made a sad picture.

“The ‘they’ that tell you where to go, Sasha. And tell you who to punch. Who are  _ they _ ?”

She needed to get a more intelligent quality of villain, too. She didn’t need to go up against a diabolical mastermind  _ every week, _ but it would be nice, sometimes, to stretch herself a little.

“Ivan - and- and, um, Dima and, and-”

“Gregor and Victor?” Natasha finished for him.

Sasha nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes. Yes. They call me and tell me what to do.”

“You never go anywhere to meet them?”

“No - no, they just text me.” Sasha held up his phone, as if Natasha needed the proof that he was able to text his bosses.

“And how do they pay you? Is there a drop point?” There had to be some kind of useful intel she could get out of Sasha.  _ Some _ reason for her to be out on this hellish night instead of sitting in her apartment drinking wine and reading trashy mystery novels.

“Venmo,” Sasha held up the phone again, and it took everything in Natasha not to shoot the damn thing out of his hand.

“Venmo,” she repeated, feeling utterly defeated.

“It’s- it’s an app that-”

“I’m aware,” Natasha cut him off, and Sasha immediately shut up.

Natasha sighed, and Sasha whimpered.

“Please,” he sobbed. “I- I could work for you? Whatever - whoever you are? I can do whatever you need. I could-”

“Sasha, there is literally nothing you can do for me,” Natasha assured him.

“Will you… let me go?”

She snorted a laugh. 

“Please?”

“Sasha, how many people have asked you to ‘please, let them go’?”

He stared at her, lips trembling. At least he wasn’t enough of an idiot to try to answer.

The cat sank its claws into Natasha’s shoulder, right near the exposed skin around her neck, and she hissed in pain and tried to shove it off.

Sasha took a chance and tried to shove his way past her and escape.

Natasha shot him five times, avoiding the headshot and instead letting each bullet hit him in a wide enough spread for it to look like the work of a panicked amateur instead of someone who had been trained to kill since the age of three.

Finally able to have both hands free, Natasha grabbed the cat by the scruff and  _ yanked _ .

Both the cat and Natasha made unhappy noises, but Natasha was finally free.

She dropped the cat to the ground and walked over to Sasha’s body.

He was facedown in a filthy puddle, body shuddering, blood and spit all over his face.

Natasha kicked him over onto his back and started to go through his pockets.

She took his damn phone, and his wallet, his keys. The expired condom and half-empty pack of cigarettes, she left.

When she stood up, Natasha noticed the cat sitting nearby, watching her.

The thing’s fur was matted to its body, and its silver eyes seemed a little dim, unfocused. 

She had the sudden, hysterical realization that the cat could have  _ rabies _ .

That Natasha could now have rabies - or- did the cat have to bite you? How did rabies get transmitted?

Didn’t cats carry disease?

There was no way in hell Natasha was going to allow herself to die because of a few cat scratches when she had burned her way to freedom from the Red Room. The Black Widow would  _ not _ be taken out by a scraggly little alley cat.

With a grimace, Natasha pounced and grabbed the cat by its filthy fur and gripped it tight.

The cat howled in protest.

“I’m not happy either,” Natasha assured it. “But I’m taking you to a vet and finding out what you’ve infected me with.”

And… she was apparently talking to a feral animal.

Wonderful.

Coulson had damn well better assign her to a mission in Milan.

-o-

This late at night, the only animal hospital open was the extremely sketchy emergency clinic in Bed-Stuy. 

Sketchy would work just fine for Natasha, assuming the veterinarian was competent enough to draw blood and run tests on it. 

If she had to drag this cat into SHIELD medical tomorrow… she might never live it down.

Not surprisingly, the waiting room at the sketchy clinic was almost empty. A middle-aged man with what looked like a middle-aged dog sat in sad, dilapidated plastic chairs and looked at Natasha with identical, bleary gazes when she walked in.

Behind a battered metal desk sat a dark-skinned man who regarded Natasha with a look of bemusement that must have mirrored the one on her own face.

“What’s going on?” he sighed out the question and shoved a clipboard at Natasha.

“This cat scratched me. I need to know if I’m going to die.”

The man held a temporary staring match with Natasha.

“You’re gonna die,” he assured her. “But it’s not going to be because of a cat scratch.”

Which, coming from someone who actually  _ knew _ Natasha, instead of a completely disinterested stranger in a completely gross clinic at 2:37 AM, might have been reassuring. 

Natasha picked up the clipboard.

The man rolled his eyes at her.

“Fill it out. Take a seat. Dr. Barton will be with you when he’s free.”

“Doctor?” she repeated, feeling the slightest bit of hope after this thoroughly disappointing night.

“Vets are doctors too,” he sighed. “Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. It’s -”

“Sure.” 

Natasha took a seat in one of the sturdier-looking chairs and adjusted her grip on the cat - the cat that was surprisingly… content? To just sit half in her hoodie pocket and use its daggers to cling to Natasha. Giving her more scratches. More points of contact. More possible vectors for death.

She filled out the paperwork in a detached blur, using the information for her current cover and current address and not having to push herself much to recall everything she needed.

The only question that tripped her up was the  _ name _ for the creature.

Natasha stared down at it, and it stared up at her.

“Liho,” she informed the thing. 

The cat’s dim silver gaze seemed more than a little judgemental at that, and Natasha found herself actually smirking a little.

She dropped off the clipboard with the front desk guy, who barely glanced at it, or her, before standing up and wandering out of sight with the clipboard in hand.

Natasha sat back down, but her ass had barely made contact with the plastic when a door opened and the exact same guy stuck his head out.

“Ms. Richmond?”

Natasha looked up at him.

“The doctor is ready for you,” he said.

Natasha couldn’t help but look over at the other man in the waiting room, with his dog.

“George isn’t waiting for Dr. Barton,” the guy answered her silent question.

Natasha failed to come up with another explanation for the guy sitting here, but… it was definitely not her circus. These were not her monkeys.

She got to her feet and followed the guy down a short hallway and into an exam room that compared unfavorably to some of the places she had been held for interrogation.

All of the surfaces - floor, counter, exam table - were offwhite tile with dark grouting lines that just looked filthy. Even though it actually looked clean, it still…

Natasha used her decades of training to keep her face neutral.

“Hang tight. And please don’t steal the cat food. We’ll give you some before you leave.”

Natasha turned to offer an opinion on  _ that _ , but the guy was gone and the door was closed before she could.

Leaving Natasha and Liho alone in the murder room.

With a sigh - and a wince and a muttered curse - Natasha pulled Liho free and put the thing on the tiled table in the middle of the room.

Liho made some choice noises, and Natasha was fairly confident the cat was telling her in succinct detail what  _ it _ thought of this hellhole.

Natasha crossed her arms, glared at it in agreement, and leaned against the wall farthest from the door.

Enough time passed that Liho decided to explore, or try to escape, or something. The cat abandoned the table and started to sniff the perimeter of the room, working its way around until it got to Natasha, and then, instead of continuing, it simply winded its way between her legs, curled around Natasha’s right foot, and laid down.

Natasha stared down at Liho.

Liho stared up at her.

“Are you some kind of AI robot thing Stark sent to torture me?” Natasha had to wonder.

Liho blinked.

Before Natasha could continue her utterly ridiculous interaction with the cat, the door to the room opened and some kind of purple scrub-costumed man walked in.

He was young and fair-haired, tan and bright-eyed, ridiculously in shape beneath his equally ridiculously bright purple clothes, and he had a Captain America band-aid on his jaw and an Iron Man one on his temple.

Clearly, he was some kind of intern. 

Or a stripper. 

The cat  _ was _ something Tony had created. This whole  _ night _ was some kind of ridiculous payback for Natasha’s stint as Natalie Rushman - an idiot velour-wearing mafia enforcer and a robot cat and a stripper veterinarian intern.

Natasha had thought Tony was over it, had thought the man considered them even after he sent a drone to explode glitter and confetti all over her during her only vacation in the last three years, on a very remote island in Alaska that no one but Hill had known she was visiting to go bird watching.

Apparently, Tony wasn’t over it.

“Hey, there,” the stripper said with a bright, blindingly white smile. His teeth were an amazing contrast to his tan skin and purple scrubs.

Natasha raised an eyebrow, unimpressed - well, a little impressed because he was  _ very _ pretty and seemed to have excellent musculature.

“Uh, what brings you in, Ms. Richmond?” the stripper asked. He snagged a dented metal rolling stool topped with a ripped gray vinyl cushion and sat down on it. The new pose made his purple scrubs stretch obscenely over his thighs.

“I came to see the vet, Dr. Barton. But I’m thinking there was no need.”

The stripper arched an eyebrow at her.

“Well, since you’re here, why don’t we give it a go anyway?”

Natasha snorted. The stripper was certainly putting in the effort. Then again, she was sure Tony had paid him well. In fact, she knew, from her time with Stark and hours spent looking through his expense accounts, that he always paid his strippers very, very well.

“Don’t bother. It’s late. Or early. Something. Tell Tony he’s not as cute as he thinks he is.”

“Um… the only Tony I know is Tony who works at Dave’s pizza? And I dunno how cute  _ he _ thinks he is, but…”

The stripper trailed off and flashed another smile at Natasha, this one incredibly flirtatious.

_ Cue the stripper music _ , Natasha thought sarcastically.

Only, there was no music, and slowly, the stripper’s smile smoothed out into a frown.

“Um, seriously, though, did you want me to take a look at-” the stripper picked up the clipboard and looked over it- “Liho?”

Natasha was very, very good at reading people. It being her job and all.

And this stripper…

“I’d rather wait and see Dr. Barton,” Natasha said.

Because this stripper was, it seemed, just a ridiculously attractive intern. And this was  _ not _ some elaborate Tony scheme.

Fuck.

She was an idiot, thinking that. She-

She was  _ delirious _ . Because she was probably dying. Because the death monster at her feet had given her some disease.

Natasha glared down at Liho.

Liho blinked up at her.

“Um, I am Dr. Barton?”

Natasha looked up and didn’t bother to mask her confusion.

“You’re twelve,” she scoffed.

The stripper - intern - Barton? - snorted.

“Twenty-five, actually.”

Natasha frowned.

“No.”

“Do you… want to see my ID?”

“You’re twenty-five and a doctor?” Setting aside that he looked like a baby - and hell, Natasha was only thirty-six. Was she already so old that everyone younger than thirty looked like an infant? - being a doctor at the age of twenty-five seemed improbably accomplished.

“Yep. Graduated high school two years early - had to get out of my shitty foster home - and wrapped up college and vet school and an internship, and… now I’m working here. As a board certified doctor of veterinary medicine. I can show you my diplomas and stuff if you need the proof?”

“No need.” Natasha would pull up the man’s entire life tomorrow when she was at SHIELD HQ.

“Okay, well, now that I’ve given you a weirdly detailed and personal explanation for… whatever, want me to take a look at Liho?”

Right.

That was… the entire reason Natasha was here.

She gestured down to the cat.

“Go for it.”

Barton gave Natasha an amused-looking smirk.

“Want to put Liho up here?” Barton patted the table between them.

Natasha scowled. She didn’t, actually, want to earn herself even more scratches, but Barton seemed perfectly content to show off his thighs by staying on his little stool.

So Natasha picked up the cat, held it as far from her as possible, and deposited it on the table.

“It’s not my cat,” she felt the need to say while Barton held one hand out to the cat. A hand with a Hulk band aid across the back of his wrist and a Falcon band aid wrapped around his index finger. 

Liho didn’t hiss or attack or seem to care much about Barton or his hand or his seriously ridiculous good looks at all. Barton moved his band aided hand to touch the cat and lifted his other hand, his left, to also touch the cat.

His left thumb was wrapped with a Black Widow band aid.

Natasha was a little transfixed, watching Barton’s hands and fingers drift over Liho, confident and gentle and firm.

“Found it in an alley,” she made herself talk, still watching. “It was in a cardboard box. The box fell apart.”

“So you brought the cat in? Considerate of you.”

“It scratched me.” Natasaha tugged at the collar of her hoodie to show off the dark red pinpricks from Liho’s assassination attempt.

Barton’s bright blue eyes flicked up from Liho to Natasha, going to the scratches first and then to her face. 

His lips twitched.

“So you… named it and brought it to the vet.”

“I wanted to make sure it didn’t give me some kind of disease. And the form asked for a name.”

Barton’s lips were still doing that thing, one corner lifting before settling down and then lifting  _ again _ . It was as distracting as his hands.

“You know,” Barton’s voice had a bit of a drawl. Midwestern. Missouri. Maybe Iowa. “Most people just leave that blank or write in ‘stray’. If, you know, it’s a stray cat.”

Natasha hadn’t even considered doing that. She-

She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.

She had immediately created a  _ cover _ for her cat.

Not her cat. A stray cat. She had given a stray cat an alias.

“I’ve never done this before,” she said after releasing the breath.

Barton nodded, fully grinning now.

“First time for everything,” he said and winked at her.

Natasha glared.

“You’re probably not going to die from cat scratches, though,” he assured her.

Natasha continued to glare. 

The same glare that an hour ago had had Sasha sobbing. The same glare that usually had men - and women, and three non-binary individuals - sobbing or pissing themselves or pleading for mercy. Or, in the notable case of that Italian blacksmith two years ago, licking his lips and asking to lick her shoes.

Barton just continued to grin.

“Have you had a tetanus shot in the last ten years?” he asked her.

SHIELD kept Natasaha, and all of their agents, up-to-date with every vaccine imaginable. 

She nodded.

“Then you should be fine.”

“What about rabies?”

“Did Liho bite you?”

“No.”

“Drool into any open wounds or your mouth?”

“No,” Natasha sneered, disgusted by the mental image and… offended that Barton would suggest that Natasha would let that happen or that Liho would just… drool on her.

“Then you’re fine. Plus, Liho isn’t exhibiting signs of rabies infection.”

“Shouldn’t you test, just to make sure?”

Barton’s grin finally faded.

“Do you know how we test for rabies?”

Natasha knew a lot of things, had acquired a varied and thorough knowledge of a frankly ridiculous number of topics for the sake of cover stories and for investigations over the years. She could hold a conversation with astrophysicists on their level, could discuss at length the nuances of contemporary queer Irish literature, could actually perform an appendectomy. But she didn’t, actually, know how a veterinarian tested for rabies.

She shook her head in the negative.

Barton’s fingers smoothed over Liho’s head and down the cat’s rather prominent spine. Liho arched into the touch and started to purr.

Natasha and Barton both stared. Liho was  _ loud _ . It sounded like the cat had the engine of an American muscle car in its little body.

“You need to test brain tissue, from two different areas of the brain, to confirm rabies infection,” Barton said. His voice was soft, almost drowned out by Liho’s purring. “We would have to euthanize her.”

“Her?”

Barton nodded.

“Liho’s a female. A few months old - maybe six or seven, I’d guess. And, going by her skin and fur and the color of her gums, I think she’s got a slight infection. Maybe something urinary-related, considering. Nothing a round of antibiotics wouldn’t take care of. I’d recommend that… and general health coverage vaccines and some flea and worm medications. Once she’s on her feet and healthy, we can get her spayed.”

Natasha found herself nodding in agreement.

“Of course. You- She doesn’t have rabies?”

Barton shook his head, confident in his denial.

“Nah. I’ll still give you a script for a rabies vaccine and you can go to Walgreens and get that if you’re worried, but she’s not showing any of the signs.”

“Okay.”

Barton grinned at her, broader than he had before, lips wide and- and he had a dimple in his right cheek. Even his eyes crinkled, just a little, because he was a  _ baby _ .

“So I’ll get the shots ready and have Asa put together some things for you to take home with her.”

“You’ll - wait, what?”

Barton arched one eyebrow at Natasha. 

“Or… you just happen to have food and stuff at home in case you adopt a stray cat? Prepared for anything, huh?”

“I’m not - Liho isn’t my cat.”

As if to disagree, the damn cat looked over at Natasha and  _ meowed _ .

Seriously, it  _ had _ to be a Tony robot thing. 

Natasha wondered, idly, just how crazy she would sound if she asked Barton to make sure the cat wasn’t… a robot.

“Okay,” Barton said, the word a sigh just dripping with angst. “I can find the space for her here while I get some treatment going. And then call around to the ‘no kill’ shelters and see if-”

“I’ve killed succulents,” Natasha interrupted Barton.

He blinked at her.

“Okay,” he repeated the word again, still full of emotion - this time confusion.

“I don’t- I’m not a nurturer,” Natasha explained.

“Okay.” It was frankly ridiculous how much Barton could put into one word.

“Liho’s very attractive. And very determined. She will get adopted. By people who won’t kill her. By people who will nurture her.”

Barton stared at Natasha. She was fairly certain  _ this _ was the expression he would have on his face if she asked him to make sure Liho wasn’t a robot.

Natasha sighed and rubbed at her temples.

“I’m not a  _ cat _ person.”

Not to mention - and really, she  _ couldn’t _ mention - the traveling she did, the complete unpredictability of her work and life and the actual danger that Liho  _ could _ be killed if anyone ever managed to find Natasha’s real apartment or her real/fake identity.

Natasha looked at Liho.

Liho blinked heavy silver eyes at Natasha.

“Have Asa put together the kit,” Natasha sighed.

Barton’s smile was like the sun, and Natasha kind of hated him for it.

She also kind of hated the fact that, thirty minutes later, she was walking out of the sketchy clinic balancing a box full of food and litter supplies under one arm and a cardboard box/breathable cage thing in her other arm.

Barton followed her out into the lobby and went so far as to hold open one of the clinic doors for her.

Liho made an unimpressed sound inside her cardboard prison.

“So, keep her on the antibiotics, make sure she’s eating and drinking well, regular bowel activity… and she should be good to come back in two weeks to get spayed.”

Natasha nodded, filing the information away. She would, of course, have to go to some other clinic and use some other assumed name for both her and Liho. Natasha couldn’t risk anyone connecting any dots between her and… a pet. 

“And, uh, in the meantime,” Barton’s cheeks were pink, and Natasha frowned up at him. The man fumbled in his scrub pants pockets and came up with a card. He used a pen from his breast pocket to write something on it. “My card,” he said. “And my phone number. In case you want to call. Or text.”

“In case Liho does actually have rabies?” Natasha asked. She looked at the card in Barton’s hand, at the way the red hourglass on the Black Widow band aid stood out against the crisp white rectangle.

“Sure. Or in case you want to go out. For coffee or food or alcohol. Or anything.”

Natasha stopped staring at Barton’s hand and refocused her attention on his pink cheeks and hopeful smile and bright blue eyes.

“I’m a decade older than you, and the last person who tried to date me died very painfully.”

“Okay,” Barton repeated that word again, just as packed with emotion as before. How he managed to make it sound pensive and sympathetic and hopeful, Natasha had  _ no idea _ .

But the hand holding the card remained steady and extended between them.

Gingerly, Natasha shifted the supply box against her hip and took the card. She ignored the slide of his warm fingers against hers, ignored just how large and calloused his hands were, and most especially ignored the way his still-present, still-hopeful smile revealed his dimple again.

“Okay,” Barton said again.

Natasha looked at the card.

_ Clint Barton, DVM _ .

“Okay,” she agreed.

“I’ll, uh, see you soon, Nancy,” Barton said.

Because, to him, Natasha was Nancy Richmond.

Clint Barton, DVM, had no idea that  _ she _ was Natasha Romanov, Black Widow.

She looked at the band aid on his thumb one last time, black and red and taunting.

“See you,” she lied.

And then she turned around and walked away, Liho mewling - no doubt judging Natasha.

-o-

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

-o-

The thing about being the very best was that when Natasha fucked up, she _really_ fucked up.

If she had been anyone else, any _less_ herself, she wouldn’t have done it.

But, well, Natasha had spent the better part of two decades building herself into the antithesis of what she had been. She had worked hard, had bled and cried and screamed and sculpted herself into a woman she could look at in the mirror and recognize no matter her hair color or eye color or nose shape or lips. 

So, she had done it.

Steve and Sam - and Tony via his last-minute tech assistance, if not in-person assistance - might have literally crashed and burned all of SHIELD to the ground, but Natasha had eviscerated the agency. Had cut right to the heart of the tumorous growth of HYDRA and exposed it and SHIELD, had exposed everyone and everything.

No more secrets, no more lies. 

The world now knew that SHIELD and HYDRA were synonymous, knew that dozens of political leaders, hundreds of corporate tycoons, thousands of influential men and women, _millions_ of Nazis, existed in the world.

And that woman? Natasha Romanov, the one she had labored so meticulously to create?

In the end, she had been burned to the ground as well.

So Natasha did the only thing she could. She packed up her DC apartment, secured Liho and the cat’s favorite fluffy mouse toy, bought a fresh package of treats, and ran.

Tony, Steve, and Sam were on a mission to destroy all vestiges of HYDRA and - perhaps _or,_ in Steve’s case - find and rescue Bucky Barnes from himself. Hill had decided to align herself with Tony, and Fury had fucked off to Europe for reasons Natasha refused to be curious about.

Natasha could have joined the Avengers, could have joined Fury. Natasha _could_ have done a lot of things.

But, quite frankly, she had _no idea what to do_.

She was capable of doing anything. She had proven that for better or worse - apparently, always worse - time and time again. 

And maybe, if she followed the righteous path Steve laid down, she would be doing more good than bad. 

But Steve’s path wasn’t hers. 

Sure as hell, neither was Fury’s. 

Natasha had a lot of complicated and messy emotions to sort through before she could even _think_ about Fury. Following him on whatever quest he was on wasn’t the way to go. Not now, maybe not ever.

So. Natasha was on her own.

Nothing new there.

Except, well, she wasn’t entirely alone.

Hadn’t been, for two years, not since Liho clawed her way into Natasha’s life.

So Natasha and Liho settled in Boston. Natasha got a library card and went to yoga classes and, once every two weeks, had an appointment with a therapist Pepper Potts had recommended.

And for a few weeks, that was… life.

Or something like it.

But then, one day, she came home and found the long-dead Phil Coulson sitting in her kitchen, dangling a feather cat toy in front of Liho while the black cat stood by the window and looked double her normal size, she was so angry and her hair so on end.

Coulson wasn’t, it turned out, dead. And Fury had known all along, of course.

Coulson wanted Natasha to follow _his_ path, wanted her to rejoin SHIELD - wanted her at his side, in his shadow, at his beck and call again.

Natasha managed to very politely tell him to go fuck himself and never contact her again and waited until he was gone before she threw up in her toilet and allowed herself exactly forty-five seconds of sheer panic.

And then she packed up her Boston apartment, secured Liho and the cat’s favorite fluffy mouse toy, bought a fresh package of treats, and ran.

Williamsburg, this time. Because hipsters wore layers and Brooklyn was adjacent to everything Natasha needed.

There was a reason Coulson had reached out to her - a reason he had waited until she was settled and comfortable and a _reason_ he had let her walk away.

Natasha got a library card and went to spin classes and, once every two weeks, attended a group grief counseling session at a local community center.

And she used her skills and network and resources to find out what Coulson was so afraid of.

HYDRA wasn’t the only thing that went bump in the night, and aliens and gods and sentient AI weren’t the only things that had starring roles in Coulson’s nightmares.

Natasha bought Liho a cat tower and a water bubbler and a food dispenser and scattered self-cleaning litter boxes all over their apartment.

She bought a plane ticket to San Francisco, and when she came back three days later with a limp and a broken fingernail and a blood stain on her favorite tank top, Liho greeted her at the door with a _meep_ and slept on Natasha’s chest while Natasha slept on the couch with a gun clutched in one hand and a bottle of vodka on the floor.

It didn’t get any easier, but after six months of… whatever she was doing, it at least became routine.

Natasha kept it to day trips when she could, never left for more than a week, and never approached targets that might be on Tony’s radar and never, _ever_ contacted Coulson or Fury.

It… worked. 

It kept Natasha from drowning, and maybe that was all she could hope for, really. 

And then Natasha fucked up.

She had been stabbed before, and she had been shot before, and she had been convinced she was going to die before.

But the night she was shot and stabbed and thrown into the Hudson, Natasha was _afraid_.

She was afraid and she was alone, and if she died, Liho would run out of food and starve to death, and there was no way in hell Natasha would allow that cat to die - not like that, not like _this_.

Hospitals were out - her enemies were as likely as her allies to be watching for that, and Natasha didn’t want either of them near her if she ended up unconscious. Stark Tower and the ridiculous medical suite Tony had set up for the Avengers was just as out, because Natasha wanted to wake up to see Phil Coulson even less than she wanted to ever see him in her kitchen again, and Pepper Potts was clearly not to be trusted.

So, Natasha found the nearest animal hospital that boasted the ability to do complex surgical procedures and was also closed for business at nine at night and broke into it.

She was shaking by the time she had assembled the tools she would need to dig out a bullet and stitch her wounds closed, and the numbness of shock had given way to the _panic_ of shock, and she was once again afraid.

But she picked up the forceps and she pulled up her shirt, and she blinked back tears and-

And the door to the room slammed open, and a man dressed in a Black Widow hoodie and too-loose sweat pants stumbled in.

He was young and fair-haired, tan and bright-eyed.

“What are you doing here?” Natasha demanded.

Clint Barton, DVM, frowned at her.

“This is my clinic,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world - as if a man she hadn’t let herself think about in more than two years just _happened_ to own the clinic she had broken into so she didn’t die.

“It’s after hours,” Natasha argued, feeling a swell of hysteria and ruthlessly stomping it down.

“I own the building. I live upstairs and the security alarm went off, and the video showed someone bleeding all over themselves, so I came down to help.”

“What?” She noticed, just now - and _that_ was something she should actually be afraid of - that Barton didn’t have a weapon of any kind - was empty-handed and open-stanced and talking to her like she was some kind of spooked, feral animal.

And _fucking hell_ , she was.

Natasha closed her eyes and forced herself to take in a deep breath.

She could kill him. Weak and shocky as she was, Natasha knew she could kill him.

She could incapacitate him, knock him out and secure him.

She could run again.

But she wasn’t convinced she could do any of those things _and_ keep herself from dying.

So she drew in a painful breath.

“You came to help?” she tried to clarify.

Barton nodded, his blue eyes skating over her face and down her bloody torso and legs.

“Can I… get some gloves and see what we’re working with?” Barton asked. He gestured towards a cabinet against the wall but didn’t move.

He was waiting for permission.

It was…

Natasha swallowed a laugh and nodded.

“Okay,” Barton said, and that _did_ make her laugh.

Barton walked over to the cabinet, pulled off his hoodie to reveal a tight white t-shirt and snapped on a pair of purple gloves.

He came back to the exam table that Natasha had propped herself against and took the forceps from her.

“How about we get you on the table?” he suggested. “I think you’re actually smaller than some of my usual patients.”

“Did you- did you just compare me to a dog?” Natasha was shivering, teeth chattering and words slurring, and this was _not good_.

Barton got her onto the table with minimal effort, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t excruciating for Natasha.

He smoothed her hair away from her face and gave her a confusingly soft smile.

“Well, one time I had a leopard on this operating table. You want me to tell you about it?”

Natasha wasn’t an idiot, and while she couldn’t understand _why_ Barton was doing this, she fully understood _what_ he was doing.

“No hospitals,” she forced herself to say. “No police.”

Barton’s soft smile turned into a frown, but he nodded.

“Okay.”

“If I die, contact Pepper Potts.”

“You-”

“I have an apartment in Williamsburg. Ninety-two Roebling Street. Unit 3. Don’t let Liho die.”

“Liho?” Barton repeated, and his blue gaze was suddenly sharp again, focused on Natasha’s face.

“Don’t let her die.”

“Nancy.” Barton was staring at Natasha as if he had seen a ghost.

“Natasha,” she corrected with a frown. “I’m Natasha, and I- Don’t let her die.”

Barton started to say something, but then he closed his mouth and shook his head.

“I’m not going to let _you_ die,” he said. “Now, let me tell you about that leopard, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

-o-

Natasha woke up convinced she was dead.

Everything was _soft_ and everything hurt, and her mouth was so very, very dry and the light was so very, very bright.

Liho meowed, her purring as loud as it ever had been, and butted her head against Natasha’s shoulder like she always did when she wanted affection.

Natasha had been trained her entire life to react and adapt and survive.

So the moment she realized that she _wasn’t_ dead, and that Liho wasn’t a hallucination, and that she was in a strange bed in a strange room and her wounds were sutured and covered in bandages and she was wearing someone else’s shirt and boxers over her bra and panties, Natasha started to search for a weapon.

The bed was situated in a loft, with an iron railing separating it from a staircase that presumably led to the rest of wherever this was. Two closed doors were off to Natasha’s left, and the wall to her right was broken up by three tall, thin windows covered with thin, purple curtains, allowing in a considerable amount of bright light.

Rummaging through the nightstand nearest her - a nightstand that had a travel coffee mug full of ice water on it and a banana - Natasha found a prostate massager, lube, condoms in a variety of flavors, a book of _Infectious Diseases of the Dog and Cat_ , and an arrowhead.

The book was heavy, but Natasha wasn’t feeling her best and didn’t think she would be able to do all that much damage with it. Under the right circumstances, she could - and had - killed someone with condoms and lube before. The prostate massager was small and sleek and not likely to be all that useful, so she palmed the arrowhead and tried to roll over on the bed to investigate the other nightstand.

Which made her injuries hurt, a hell of a lot, and also brought to her attention the fact that there was a one-eyed dog sleeping on the floor on the other side of the bed.

The dog looked up at her, and Natasha looked down at it.

Liho meowed and butted her head against Natasha’s shoulder again.

The dog whined and thumped its tail.

Natasha drew in a deep, painful breath and started to look through the other drawer.

More books - exotic animals, marine mammal medicine, reptile medicine and surgery, oncology - toy cleaner that Natasha hoped was for the prostate massager, a beanie, a baseball with teeth marks on it, and a flashlight. 

The flashlight was heavy and large, and Natasha shoved it under the pillow she had been sleeping on and grabbed the baseball too.

The one-eyed dog was instantly on its feet and gave a sharp, loud _yip_ and wagged its tail.

“Shh,” Natasha hissed at it.

But the dog yipped again and seemed completely immune to Natasha’s glare.

Another yip, and Natasha heard movement below them, footsteps and- 

And a fair-haired man trooped up the steps and turned a wide smile on Natasha in the bed.

She gripped the baseball tighter.

“Hey, you’re awake!” Barton sounded happy but not shocked.

“Where am I?” Natasha demanded.

“My apartment. Upstairs from the clinic. Shouldn’t have moved you, really, but we were open yesterday and my techs would have probably asked some questions and called the cops if they saw, you know, you. So I put you up here.”

“Yesterday?”

Barton nodded. He approached the edge of the bed and sat down on the corner farthest from her. He was back in the Black Widow hoodie but now wearing a pair of soft, loose jeans with holes in the knees.

“Yeah. You were in and out of it while I patched you up, and I gave you some drugs, too. Sorry, I did ask if I could but you were already too out of it to really consent, but… it really was for your own safety.”

“Why is Liho here?”

“You were pretty adamant about me not letting her die. So yesterday morning, after your fever kicked it and I got the clinic cleaned up and open, I went over to your apartment and got her for you.”

“Did you break in through the front door or the fire escape window?” She hoped he had had the sense to use the fire escape. It would be less likely to attract attention, and there was a better chance she wouldn’t go home to find a completely ransacked apartment.

Barton huffed a soft laugh.

“Neither? I told your landlord I was your boyfriend and you were sick and staying at my place and wanted your cat, so… she let me in.”

That was even worse.

Now Natasha would definitely have to move. 

Why couldn’t Barton have broken in like a normal person?

Liho bumped against her shoulder again, and Natasha let herself relax enough to set the baseball down and pet her head.

Barton’s bright eyes tracked her movements.

“Planning on playing catch with Lucky?” he asked and gestured to the baseball.

Natasha looked from the dog, still hopefully wagging its tail, to Barton.

“No,” Natasha said.

Barton nodded.

“Okay.”

They sat there for a few minutes in silence, and Natasha was a little unsettled to find herself feeling less anxious and almost… at ease in Barton’s company.

“So, since you’re awake, can I look at your injuries and make sure they’re healing?” Barton asked after a few soft, quiet minutes.

Natasha nodded in acquienense.

“Awesome,” Barton smiled at her again. “I’m gonna run downstairs and get some gloves and clean supplies… Be back in just a minute, okay? Oh, and the bathroom is through there, if you need it.” He pointed to one of the closed doors.

Natasha nodded again, and Barton stood up, looked down at her, ran a hand through his own hair and turned it into a fluffy disaster, and then turned and went back down the stairs.

Liho gave Natasha a look, and Natasha pressed her forehead to the cat’s.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

Reluctantly, she got up from the bed, wincing and biting back her reactions to the pain of moving so much. She made her way to the bathroom, emptied her bladder, and couldn’t help but note the purple bath mat, purple shower curtain, purple towels, and purple hand soap and purple toothbrush. 

She very carefully removed her underwear and, after giving it a sniff and smelling entirely too much of the Hudson on the fabric, dumped them into the purple trash can.

It wasn’t until she was drying her hands off on the purple hand towel that she realized the prostate massager had _also_ been purple.

Clint Barton really had a thing for that color.

He was also waiting for her, when she stepped out of the bathroom, but he didn’t hover or attempt to help her back to the bed, and Natasha felt relieved and grateful in equal measure.

The stab wound on her thigh was ‘looking good’, and the bullet wound in her right abdomen was ‘not bad at all’. 

Barton taped on new bandages, wrapped the old ones and his gloves up in a plastic bag, and grinned at her.

“So, anything I can get you?” he asked.

“An Uber,” she said. Her phone had been lost to the river, along with her weapons.

“I can do that,” Barton said and nodded. “But, uh, you can also stay here, for another day, if you- Just to make sure those wounds don’t get infected. I’ve got you on some antibiotics but another day, just to make sure, would probably be good.”

Natasha stared at him.

“I’m a complete stranger who broke into your clinic. Why are you doing this?”

“You’re not a _complete_ stranger,” Barton scoffed. “You’re, well, you’re not Nancy - obviously - but… I do remember you.”

Now that she wasn’t in shock, Natasha could think back on their interactions and feel embarrassed. She had remembered him, of course - she remembered _everyone_ . But Clint hadn’t realized who she was at first. Which made sense. After all, Nancy had had short black hair and brown eyes and a nose ring. Natasha _now_ had ruthlessly bleached ashy blonde hair and her natural green eyes.

But Clint _had_ remembered Nancy when Natasha started to go on and on about Liho.

“I’m not going to apologize for never calling you,” she said.

Barton smirked.

“Yeah, no, that’s- I didn’t expect you to. To call or to apologize now or… anything. And I mean, I get it, _now_.”

She raised her eyebrows at him.

Barton’s cheeks flushed, just like they had that night nearly three years ago, when he fumbled to give her his card.

He gestured to his hoodie, to the blood-red hourglass that covered his chest.

Natasha looked from the symbol up to his face and met his bright gaze.

“Been a fan for a while,” Barton said with a shrug and another hand raking through his hair. “You know, you saved my brother’s life, during the Battle of Manhattan. And, just, in general, you _save_ people.”

Natasha hadn’t ever encountered a _fan_ before. Not like this. She had many fans of her ‘work’ - enemies who admired her skills or wanted to be the ones to claim they had bested the Black Widow. But never a civilian who seemed to genuinely… like her?

“And then, with your whole, fuck you to - well, everyone - with the HYDRA-SHIELD thing…” Barton nodded. “That was so badass.”

That made Natasha laugh, and she regretted it immediately and clutched her side.

“Shit. Sorry. No more making you laugh.” Barton’s hands fluttered a bit, as if he wanted to reach out and soothe her or something.

He looked anxious, and Natasha laid back down, head on the pillow, and had to smirk when he almost immediately relaxed again.

“So, uh, stay for another day?” Barton tried again. “And then you can totally vanish again. I mean, you can do whatever you want - obviously. But-”

“I’ll stay for another day,” Natasha agreed and closed her eyes.

It smelled nice in the room, for all that there was a dog there. 

The pillow and the blankets smelled nice. Fresh and clean and-

“Do you use lavender laundry detergent?” she had to ask.

“Yes?”

She opened her eyes and looked over at him.

“Because it’s purple, right?”

“Well, yeah, of course.”

_Of course_.

“So, now that you’re awake, I should go down to the clinic and catch up on paperwork for a few hours. If you need something, here’s the phone.” He brought over a cordless handset - purple - and put it on the nightstand closest to her. “And here’s the number for the clinic.” He put a business card beside the phone. 

Natasha squinted at it and couldn’t help but smile when she saw that he had, once again, scribbled his phone number on it as well.

“And my cell,” he added, as if reading her mind. “If… you need anything.”

Natasha turned to look at him.

She had thought about him, a few times over the years. The unrealistically sexy veterinarian in purple scrubs. And while she _was_ a fan of the purple scrubs, she couldn’t deny an appreciation for the sight of Clint Barton wearing a Black Widow hoodie and looking at her with tousled hair and an open, eager expression on his face.

“Anything?” she asked.

His cheeks flushed again.

“Yeah. You know,” his dimple appeared when he gave her a lopsided grin, “coffee, alcohol, food - anything you want.”

Natasha considered it. Considered all of the reasons she should really just grab her cat and steal some clothes and money and _run_.

She snuggled into the soft, warm blankets and smiled.

“Anything sounds nice.”

-o-

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Second and final chapter will be posted next week!


End file.
